Analyzing Leandro Lo’s Super Effective BJJ Game

Leandro Lo is one of the most exiting fighters on the circuit. A black belt under Cicero Costha, Leandro made a big boom on the BJJ world when he beat the then unbeatable Michael Langhi in April 2011 – (who had been unbeaten for 3 years) on his way to the top spot of the World Pro JJ Cup in Abu Dhabi. He was crowned World Champion in 2012 beating Roberto Satoshi and Lucas Lepri on his way to the title.

His guard game is primary spider, which he uses to set up his half-spider, half-one leg X guard position. He usually hits a lumberjack-style sweep from here (30% of his sweeps in 2012) or transition to a full X guard single leg (25% of his sweeps).

His passing game consists of Knee slice, Torreando (Bullfighter) and leg drag variations. His passing game is as good as his guard game. He was the first guy to pass Michael Langhi’s guard in competition in a very long time.

He pulls of this sweep almost very match:

A sherdog poster described the move like this:“1. Spider guard control with my right hand and right foot on opponent’s left elbow.2. Control opponent’s right leg with my left hand by holding the pants.3. When opponent stands, put my left foot flat on the ground and pull them diagonally with my right spider guard control. They really need to be pulled forward almost towards your ear. Your leg needs to stay straight. This can be challenging if you are not flexible.4. Now that they are off balance, you move underneath using the pants control you have with your left hand.5. The top x-guard hook goes in first, and then the second follows. At this point you can switch to full x-guard, or use a shin-in type x-guard sweep. You will have a lot of options, especially if you keep the grip on your opponent’s sleeve with your right hand.

This is the most basic version of this sweep. There are lots of variations and as you get more comfortable with it you won’t even need your opponent to stand up before you can get them off balance enough to get your x-guard hooks in.”

There is a great example of him doing a variation on this sweep right at the start of his Pan Ams match with Lucas Lepri.